Those are the DOJ rules and findings. People are certainly free to debate them, but it doesn't square for a former FBI official to invoke "the rule of law" while dismissing the DOJ rules *and* a DOJ inquiry reinforcing them.

And that raises the question, is the best thing for the Mueller probe having this key witness weigh in on the release of Mueller's findings — or is this more about trying to relitigate and defend an FBI Clinton announcement that's not even an issue right now?

I want someone to ask @Comey why it was so important to inform the American people about those emails but not important to let us know that candidate Trump was already under investigation for seeking help from foreign powers.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Anne Lauriehttps://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgAnne Laurie2019-03-05 18:18:212019-03-05 18:18:21Clown Car Open Thread: Speaking of People Who Should STFU...

This morning, @realDonaldTrump tweeted about his Scottish golf course. It's a beautiful place that's brought him a lot of trouble: 5 yrs of losses, $70M in sunk cash. Now a court has ordered that Trump pay the Scottish Govt.'s legal fees, after they beat him in court. https://t.co/756dt4SNQR

"They’re just now being cooperative; they had not been," she said. "But now that I have the chairmanship and we’re in the majority … yes, they have offered to cooperate and my staff have just started to work with them to get the documents.”https://t.co/YqiSrEZazD

The 101-strong New Democrat Coalition wants to fund reinsurance and cost-sharing reduction payments in a package that closely resembles the deal struck last Congress by Senate health committee leaders Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.)….
To prod leadership into action, the group sent a letter urging prompt committee action to key committee leaders—Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) of Energy and Commerce, Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) of Ways and Means, and Bobby Scott (D-Va.) of Education and Labor.

Kimberly Leonard notes that this has an interesting intra-caucus tension:

Centrist House Democrats on Wednesday announced they would be pushing for a healthcare plan to shore up Obamacare, only hours after the House's liberal Democrats pushed for a fully government-financed healthcare system. https://t.co/5RqIfk5tnS

Alexander-Murray was a good bill for its context. It sought to address significant concerns and possible concerns. Everything in that bill except for the catastrophic plan section had a straight forward chain:

Identifiable Problem — Clear text with a clean logic model — Problem addressed with a high probability of solving the problem that was identified

It appropriated funds for Cost Sharing Reduction (CSR) for two years as almost everyone except for Balloon-Juice readers were convinced that not funding CSR would do very bad things to the market.

It handled a variety of 1332 issues that several states had complained about.

It sent the healthcare.gov navigation and enrollment assistance funding away from HHS and to the states.

It kicked CMS in the butt to get Section 1333 (interstate compacts for opt-in multi-state markets) regulations written.

Significant reinsurance funding to lower non-subsidized premiums.

All of that made sense at the time.

And most of that bill still makes sense. Section 1332 waiver boundaries and rules can be cleaned up. Navigation and enrollment assistance to the states at Alexander-Murray levels would increase enrollment. Section 1333 regulations would be a good thing for states that want to create larger, inter-state risk pools to reduce variance costs. Reinsurance or other forms of assistance would help the non-subsidized buyers.

Inaction means, over the long run, more people will get low(er) out of pocket expenses/lower deductible insurance for lower premiums through structured, subsidized exchanges. I think that after a year or two, the expected social contract of what “acceptable” publicly subsidized insurance will move to Gold instead of Silver plans. Lower cost Gold plans and very affordable Bronze plans will increase long run uptake of PPACA insurance among people who earn between 200 percent and 400 percent FPL. This is a group with more political power than Medicaid recipients and Medicaid recipients were able to successfully mobilize to defend their interest this year. Appropriating CSR and thus maintaining the status quo is closer to conservative policy and ideological preferences than resetting the effective benchmark to Gold.

Ironically, we’re now far closer to the Obama 2007 healthcare plan today than we were on January 19, 2017.

There can be good reasons for liberals and Democrats to agree to appropriate CSR. Rep. Pallone’s 2018 HR 5155 appropriated CSR but used the fund flow to expand CSR eligibility and levels as well as expand premium tax credit subsidy eligibility to more people. But the fundamental nature of the ACA has changed due to the termination of CSR and the politics have changed since October 2017 when there was a legitimate fear that not paying CSRs would cause the market to collapse.

But that trade-off has to be made with a recognition of reality. Terminating CSR has created a different market that is more favorable, in isolation, to Democratic policy preferences than Republican policy preferences. The New Dem coalition needs to realize that it was not effective sabotage but a backdoor incidental strengthening.Read more

In midst of North Korea summit and Cohen testimony, WH belatedly announced Jared Kushner met with Saudi Arabia's crown prince Tuesday in first face-to-face encounter since the brutal murder and disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The readout does not mention Khashoggi.

… According to the White House, Kushner met with the crown prince and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to build on previous conversations about increasing cooperation between the United States and Saudi Arabia, as well as the Trump administration’s hopes to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians. The State Department referred to the White House an inquiry about whether Khashoggi was discussed at the meeting. Multiple White House officials did not respond.

The encounter, part of Kushner’s seven-day tour through the Middle East, comes weeks after the Trump administration reserved the right to decline lawmakers’ demands that the White House issue a report to Congress determining who is responsible for the murder of Khashoggi. The move caused an uproar among legislators on both sides of the aisle, some of whom claimed the president’s actions amounted to a cover-up on behalf of the Saudi government and a violation of the law…Read more